Benefit tourism figures ‘vulnerable to misinterpretation’

Britain’s statistics watchdog has issued a strong rebuke to ministers who rushed out figures last Friday purporting to show that there are 371,000 migrants claiming welfare benefits in the country.

Sir Michael Scholar, the head of the UK Statistics Authority, wrote on Wednesday to the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, telling him that the figures that were published were “highly vulnerable to misinterpretation”.